Local-hire ordinance has assemblyman steamed

CITY INSIDER

Published 4:00 am, Friday, February 11, 2011

Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, is taking his ongoing beef with San Francisco over its local-hire ordinance to the statehouse.

He plans to introduce a bill Friday to limit the reach of San Francisco's new law that aims to put more local residents to work on the city's public works construction projects.

Hill's legislation, if approved, would prohibit the use of state money on local-hire projects. It would also prevent the ordinance from being applied to the city's projects that are in counties within 70 miles of San Francisco, such as upgrades to the Hetch Hetchy water system on the Peninsula.

"San Francisco can use its own money any way it wants," Hill said Thursday. "Taxpayers from San Mateo, Ventura, Solano and other California counties shouldn't have to pay for the increased construction costs that will result from San Francisco's local-hire ordinance."

Plus, he said the city should be thinking regionally, not hyper-local.

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"Jerry Hill does not understand the legislation or refuses to understand the legislation," said San Francisco SupervisorJohn Avalos, chief sponsor of the law. Once fully implemented it will require that 50 percent of the construction jobs on city projects will be filled by local residents.

Avalos said regional interests were considered. For example, he said, the definition of local has been stretched to include residents in jurisdictions where the work is being performed and there is a shared financial investment.

In addition, Avalos noted, the local-hire mandate only applies to the portion of the project funded with local money - not state or federal. The San Francisco law, backed by Mayor Ed Lee, aims to make it easier for unemployed construction workers living in San Francisco to better benefit from the billions of dollars in capital projects the city has planned over the next decade.

"San Franciscans are generating taxpayer dollars to build these projects, and in some communities, unemployment is 25 percent," said Lee's spokeswoman, Christine Falvey. "We want to make sure out local residents are getting an opportunity to work in their communities."

Pay hike? A proposed ballot measure to give San Francisco's elected school board members a raise from the $6,000 a year they now earn to $50,000 is all but dead, but a pared-back version that would cap the annual pay at about $25,000 - or half the starting salary of a first-year teacher - still has some life in it and may end up before voters.

The Board of Supervisors' Rules Committee on Thursday opted to send the proposal to the full board next week for consideration without recommendation. There, it is expected to be amended to make the proposal more palatable to a cost-conscious public.

Initially, the proposal by former Supervisor Bevan Duftybefore he was termed out of office called for City Hall to pick up the tab. But that may be changed to require the school district to pay the bill once the state has fully paid back the district for promised funds.

Still undecided is whether the seven school board members should be offered retirement health benefits and under what restrictions, such as a minimum number of years of service. The proposal to boost the pay of school board members already has five sponsors; six are needed to place the measure on the ballot.

- Rachel Gordon

An unusual freebie: With all the talk about balancing the budget and reforming the pension system, it's good to see at least one city department still knows how to have fun. Leave it to the Department of Public Health to spice up Valentine's Day with a citywide campaign to promote the new and improved female condom. (Hallmark cards, after all, are such a bore.)

Female condoms have been around for years, but have not been widely used because of a range of customer complaints, but the manufacturer recently developed a new design for the FC2 and San Francisco is designing a citywide marketing campaign for the product that appeals to women and gay men.

Soon, you'll see posters promoting the FC2 on Muni buses. Health outreach workers will also distribute posters and cards promoting FC2 at community agencies and businesses. Staffers in the department's STD and HIV prevention sections will be at Civic Center Plaza at noon Monday to kick off the campaign. The Teacher Bus - a classroom on wheels - will roam the city throughout the afternoon to distribute free packs of mints, chocolates and female condoms.